WEATHER FORCES ONE-DAY DELAY OF DRAGON’S SPACE STATION DEPARTURE - The threat of inclement weather has forced the departure of the SpaceX Dragon capsule from the International Space Station (ISS) to be delayed until Tuesday morning, NASA officials announced on Friday. According to Mara D. Ballaby of Florida Today, the return voyage was originally scheduled to take place on Monday, but was delayed by one day due to anticipated poor conditions near its Pacific Ocean splashdown site. More (Source: RedOrbit - Mar 24)
SPACE STATION CAPSULE TO RETURN MONDAY TO EARTH - International Space Station managers gave the OK Thursday for SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule to head back to Earth early Monday. Station managers and SpaceX officials met Thursday to discuss preparations for the flight home, including a review of thruster problems the spacecraft experienced shortly after its March 1 launch from here atop a Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX engineers overcame the problems, and the Dragon arrived at the station March 3, a day later than planned. More (Source: USA Today - Mar 22)
UNPRECEDENTED FOURTH LAUNCH IN FOUR MONTHS FOR ATLAS 5 - Launching. Just launching. That's been the mantra for the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket program, which successfully completed its fourth flight in four months on Tuesday by boosting a surveillance satellite into orbit for the Pentagon. The pace is the unprecedented in the decade-long history of the Atlas 5 family, and each of the four missions lifted off in the opening moment of their launch windows on the first attempt. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 20)
THE SATELLITE COLLISION THAT NEVER HAPPENED? - What has been reported by mainstream press to have been a satellite collision in late January, which allegedly damaged a Russian satellite, never took place, according to a U.S. defense official. Major news outlets reported last week that the Russian BLITS satellite collided with a piece of orbital debris left after China conducted an antisatellite test using its own Feng Yun 1C satellite as a target in 2007. They quote experts at the Center for Space Standards & Innovation, who say the collision occurred Jan. 22. More (Source: Aviation Week - Mar 19)
INDIA GEARS UP TO LAUNCH FIRST NAVIGATIONAL SATELLITE - India plans to launch its first navigational satellite in June, a top official of the Department of Space (DoS) said today. The first Satellite of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) constellation, IRNSS-1 will be launched by PSLV-C22, said DoS Secretary and Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Radhakrishnan. According to ISRO officials, IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system, designed to provide position accuracy of better than 10 metres over India and the region extending about 1500 km around the country. More (Source: Indiatimes.com - Mar 18)
SWISS COMPANY AIMS TO FLY SATELLITES INTO SPACE - If you want to launch a satellite in the usual way – on top of a rocket – it will typically cost you at least US$50,000,000. Newly-inaugurated aerospace firm Swiss Space Systems (S3), however, claims that it will be able to put your small satellite into orbit for about 10.6 million bucks. Why so cheap? S3 is planning on flying satellites into space, using an airliner and an unmanned shuttle. More (Source: Gizmag - Mar 17)
3 ASTRONAUTS RETURN TO EARTH FROM SPACE STATION - A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed Saturday morning on the steppes of Kazakhstan, safely returning the three men to Earth after a 144-day mission to the International Space Station. NASA's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin had been scheduled to return on Friday, but the landing was postponed by a day because of bad weather. Live footage on NASA TV showed all three men smiling as they were helped out of the capsule and into reclining chairs to begin their acclimatization to Earth's gravity. More (Source: USA TODAY - Mar 17)
BAD WEATHER IN KAZAKHSTAN DELAYS RETURN OF 3 SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS FOR AT LEAST 1 DAY - Bad weather is delaying the return of three astronauts from the International Space Station. The astronauts were scheduled to land in a Soyuz capsule in central Kazakhstan early Friday morning. But fog and freezing rain prevented Russian rescue helicopters from flying to the touchdown site. NASA's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin will stay at the space station for at least another day. They've been in space for nearly five months. More (Source: Fox News - Mar 15)
SWISS SPACE SYSTEMS UNVEILS SMALL REUSABLE SATELLITE LAUNCH SYSTEM - Swiss Space Systems (S-3), based in Payerne in the Alpine country, has released plans for a reusable small satellite launch system, with test flights scheduled to begin in 2017. S-3's plan entails air-launching a reusable lifting body-like vehicle from the top of an Airbus A300, which will, in turn, release a disposable third stage. Though crucial details were not immediately available, the launch system is closely based on Dassault's airborne reusable hypersonic vehicle (VEHRA) concept, which the company has been proposing for several years without any takers. Dassault is one of six industrial partners in the project. More (Source: Flightglobal - Mar 15)
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